The Promises She Keeps

By Erin Healy

It's her destiny to die young. The man who loves her can't live with that.

Promise, a talented young singer with a terminal illness, is counting on fame to keep her memory alive after she dies. Porta is an aging sorceress and art collector in search of immortality.

When Promise inexplicably survives a series of freak accidents, Porta believes that she may hold the key to eternal life.

Enter Chase, an autistic artist who falls in love with Promise and fascinates her with his mysterious visions and drawings.

Soon, all are plunged into a confrontation over the mystery and the cost of something even greater than eternal life . . . eternal love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Thomas Nelson
• Release date: Feb 7, 2011
• ISBN: 9781401685379

Book preview

Praise for Never Let You Go

"Healy, who is best known for her suspense novels cowritten with Ted Dekker (Kiss; Burn), tries her hand at writing a suspense novel [Never Let You Go] tinged with elements of the supernatural that will appeal to readers who like to be on the edge of their seats."

—LIBRARY JOURNAL

"Healy’s first solo novel [Never Let You Go] is exciting and engrossing. The adventurefilled main story and a heart-pounding supernatural spiritual element are woven together seamlessly to create a winning combination sure to appeal to readers."

—ROMANTIC TIMES, 4½ STARS

Heart-pounding suspense and unrelenting hope that will steal your breath.

—TED DEKKER, NEW YORK TIMES BEST-SELLING AUTHOR

Healy sets up such a brutally hopeless scenario, readers will wonder if there’s any way out for Lexi. It takes a long time, but miracles can and do happen in this faith-based thriller. Fans of Ted Dekker will appreciate Healy’s chilling story of the dangers on the road back to hope and faith.

—SHELLEY MOSLEY, BOOKLIST

"[Never Let You Go] keeps you glued to the pages until the very last."

—TOSCA LEE, AUTHOR OF HAVAH: THE STORY OF EVE

THE PROMISES

SHE KEEPS

Other books by Erin Healy

Never Let You Go

Coauthored with Ted Dekker

Kiss

Burn

THE PROMISES

SHE KEEPS

ERIN HEALY

9781595547514_INT_0005_001

© 2010 by Erin Healy

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version or the Holy Bible: New International Version®, NIV®. © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Thomas Nelson, Inc., titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail [e-mail].

Published in association with Creative Trust, Inc., 5141 Virginia Way, Suite 320, Brentwood, TN 37027.

Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Healy, Erin M.

    The promises she keeps / Erin Healy.

            p. cm.

    ISBN 978-1-59554-751-4 (pbk.)

    1. Women singers—Fiction. 2. Terminally ill—Fiction. 3. Mysticism—Fiction. I. Title.

    PS3608.E245P76 2011

    813’.6—dc22

        2010040270

Printed in the United States of America

10 11 12 13 14 RRD 6 5 4 3 2 1

For my parents

the artist and the framer.

All your works are beautiful.

Contents

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With everlasting gratitude to

Reading Group Guide

About the Author

1

In the silence of night, sounds of life have a greater chance of being heard.

One of these sounds woke Chase Ellis from deep sleep at a heavy predawn hour. His rousing was sudden and full, so that without any bleary transition he found himself aware of his own thoughts. He lay on his back under a rhythmic ceiling fan. The blades made their circuit and caused the fan’s light chain to tink against a glass globe. This familiar noise usually rocked his mind into rest. Something else had disrupted him.

The shadows of his father’s room possessed all their usual shapes, though Chase evaluated them as being darker than usual by twelve to fifteen percent. The saturated dimness was due to the time, a full three hours before his intuitive rising with the sun. He needed no clock to know this.

A vivid scene unfolded in Chase’s mind: On the other side of the world, where his father had slept and awakened for the past ten years, the sun blazed over a desert afternoon. There were no trees in that dry land, only people, who moved slowly like Tolkien’s Ents. The hot light shone on his father, whom Chase envisioned as one of the world’s most enduring trees. Pinus longaeva had been dated to thousands of years, and in some cases a tree stayed firmly upright long after its death.

Chelsea said their father was certainly dead by now, but in Chase’s thoughts the man was green and bursting with seedy cones, and so Chase could not agree with her.

He heard the noise again. He lifted the corner of the blanket and peeled it off his body, then did the same with the sheet. He sat up, then pivoted so his feet swung together over the edge of the bed. The stiff fibers of the carpet brushed his toes.

By the timing of the overhead chain, which hit the globe precisely on each second, Chase counted one minute and seven seconds of waiting before the sound came a third time: the rattling of sticks in a tin can. It came from the room across the hall, which had been Chase’s as a child before his father was deployed, before Chase’s drawings took over that space and Chase took over his father’s room.

Chase walked through shadows without turning on the light, because he did not need it and was not afraid. He knew the width of every passage and the protrusion of every sharp corner, the location of every shoe and book on the floor. He walked out of the room and through the hall, past the closed door of the bathroom. The rattling ceased.

His entrance into his old bedroom moved just enough air to lift the edge of a drawing tacked to the wall. The movement created a mild papery rustling among his other sketches—like leaves in a spring breeze—before sighing back to rest. This was his welcome.

Chase crossed the room and turned on the desk lamp, which leaned over a spiral-bound book of black drawing paper. The light bounced off his white T-shirt. The red fabric of his basketball shorts turned shiny and felt weightless against his skin. He did not play basketball, but he liked the texture of the pants. The brilliant bulb transformed the uncovered window behind the desk into a sheet of black glass, as black as the paper Chase used for his drawings.

On either side of the wide obsidian, built-in shelving reached all the way up to the ceiling and all the way out to the adjoining walls, and each shelf was lined with cans and tin cases. These contained stumps and brushes and sticks and tools and pencils. White pencils. White was the only color Chase used.

But not only pencils. The cans and tins were filled with many white substances suitable for drawing: water-soluble ink pencils, oil paint sticks, oil pastels, white-charcoal pencils and sticks, pastels and pastel pencils, colored pencils, woodless aqua pencils, Conté crayons in which graphite had been mixed with clay, white-tinted graphite pencils, and china markers. He had a tailor’s marker, blackboard chalk, a few paperless white Crayolas, stage makeup, cornstarch and talc (which could be liquefied and applied with the nub of a quill pen), and also bars of soap.

Chase listened to the shelves. He owned 210 containers, 105 on each side of the window, fifteen items on each of the seven tiers. He knew the contents of each. He waited for the one that had awakened him.

On the right side of the window, third shelf from the top, the sixth canister from the left began to hum. The former Progresso soup can, stripped of its blue label, contained a broken stick of quarter-inch General’s white charcoal, one General’s pencil, two Derwent Graphitint pencils, and a rubber blending stump. The hum increased to a rattling in earnest, a vibration that shifted the can toward the brink. Chase watched it fall.

The contents scattered across the carpet at his feet, and the broken stick of charcoal chipped on the lip of the can. The utensils begged for him to draw. Chase bent to collect each item and returned everything to the can.

As he stooped, a rustling of paper called out to him. Holding the can, he straightened, then pivoted to scan each wall in the room. He thought the sound came from there, from one of the hundreds of drawings tacked up in overlapping rows.

These were pictures he had made of trees. White, ghostly trees on dark sheets. For starters, Chase had drawn every species known to the Pacific Northwest: the cascara buckthorn, with its wavy-edged leaves and pronounced veins; the Pacific dogwood, covered like snow in the white bracts that framed its tiny flowers; the towering black cottonwood, its seeds hanging from strings like pearls on a woman’s necklace; quaking aspen, the heartshaped leaves fluttering. When he’d exhausted the region he’d moved on to other species of the country, the continent, the world.

None of his art appeared out of order. He rotated until his toes pointed once again at the desk. Chase lowered the soup can to place it on the surface, but stopped. The black drawing pad that had been closed now lay open, a fresh slate.

This was highly unusual. Still holding the can, he pulled out his chair and sat. The Mi-Teintes pastel book was bound with wire at the top and contained sixteen sheets of 9 x 12 black textured paper. Each of these was separated by a translucent sheet of glassine. Chase stared at the exposed page. He heard the rhythm of the fan chain in the other bedroom.

At the top of the page a letter appeared, an A, as in the beginning of the alphabet, as in A is for alder or acacia or abele. The letter did not appear all at once, but as a tilting line that rose to the right, then fell down to the right, then was crossed in the middle, written by an invisible hand with an invisible pen.

Not a pen. A soft white wax. A china marker. Chase lifted his eyes to his shelves, seeking a flat Hershey’s collector’s tin with a hinged lid on the left side of the window. Bottom level, third from the left. He retrieved it and flipped open the top with one thumb. All nine of his markers were inside, in Sharpie, Dixon, Berol, and Sanford brands. What instrument was making these marks, and how?

On the paper, a new letter had appeared after the A, following a space. An l, lowercase, and then an o. Bold strokes, firm and authoritative. N. Chase sank back into his chair, candy tin in one hand and soup can in the other, mesmerized. G. The letters formed words and the words formed a phrase.

A longing fulfilled is

Familiarity came over Chase like sunshine, a comforting assurance that everything about to happen was good.

Chase set the containers next to the sketchbook, then lifted the page to see whether the words were being applied from the backside or through the desk. Nothing. On the front, the script continued to flow. He lowered the page and ran his fingers over the fresh words, which had taken on the texture of the paper. The silky wax and dry pulp were braille to Chase. His fingertips tingled.

A longing fulfilled is a tree of life.

At his bidding, an image from his mind became lifelike in the room. It was helpful for him to put the contents of his head out in front of him. And so he was able to see the figure of a Great Basin bristlecone pine tree—far too large for the room, impossibly large, and bent by the confining ceiling—leaning over the page, writing with one of its branches.

Chase did not evaluate why he had envisioned Pinus longaeva, because the words on the page demanded his attention. They were an adage he knew well, a passage from the Bible’s book of Proverbs in the thirteenth chapter.

He picked up the broken white charcoal stick and made several broad strokes along the margin of the page. The strokes formed a shape: a complex trunk, wide and twisted like flame, a branch. He set the charcoal in the soup can and wiped his fingers on his red shorts and reached for the Graphitint pencil, which would give him finer detail than the charcoal. With this he created a cluster of needles. Many, many spiny needles in tight brush formations.

Trees lived and breathed and should not be made motionless on paper, and this had always presented some challenge to Chase. He lifted the notebook and let the page dangle. He shook it firmly one time, causing the sheet to buckle. The branches moved. The needles stayed erect. Chase was very pleased. He returned the book to the desk, then held the pencil above the proverb.

The majestic tree of life he intended to finish drawing vanished from his mind.

A longing fulfilled is a tree of life. Draw the longing, for time is short. Fill the heart, for days are full.

All he could see were words, and then the meaning of the words disappeared and all he could see were strokes. He saw the movements of a man’s hand gripping a grease pencil and forming each symbol, the sweeping and swooping of lines, the tight angles, the free-flowing tails.

This was his father’s handwriting.

Chase felt happy to see it. He turned the page over and waited for the bristlecone to reappear, waited for his father to write more.

2

The bluffs above the ocean were the winds’ playground. Brisk breezes dashed in all directions and teased the twisted cypress trees. Tarnished clouds advanced low over the Oregonian coastline, bringing rain to challenge the late-morning sun. Where storm and sunlight met, shades of blue and gray shimmered.

While she waited for the artist who’d hired her, Promise leaned out over the weatherworn split-rail barrier separating her from the sharp drop to a narrow strip of sandy beach some forty feet below. The wood complained, and she retreated.

If she were the suicidal type, this would be a poetic time and place for dying. But she wasn’t. Her life was going to end prematurely, there was no doubt about that in the mind of anyone who knew anything about her, but it would end only against her will, and only at the height of her fame.

Which was on its way. Soon. Very, very soon. She pleaded with whatever unseen force governed the world that this would be true, because her days were winding down with every turn of the earth.

For two weeks Promise had ignored the familiar heaviness creeping into her lungs, the declining pulse-ox numbers, the less productive chesttherapy sessions, the fatigue that hit her earlier in the day than usual. She knew as well as she knew her name that she was sick and wouldn’t be able to avoid the hospital many more days. This didn’t bode well for her plans. Auditions for the fall musical production—which two agents had just this morning promised to attend—were next week. It would take every antibiotic and home remedy known to man to keep her on her feet until then.

There were at least a dozen advantages to dying young, enough that Promise generally ignored the fate that shadowed her like a pesky black puppy. Feeding the needy animal was a waste of resources and didn’t do a thing to solve the problem that most frightened her: dying before anyone really knew who she was. It wasn’t that Promise wanted fame, exactly, but that she didn’t want to be forgotten. Fame was a practical means to that end.

She coughed several times to loosen up her lungs and then lightly slapped her thigh in a perky beat and hummed to ward off the anxiety that crept up on her.

The teasing atmosphere of the sky turned mean. Her long hair snapped at her eyes and caught at the corners of her mouth. She pulled her woolly wrap tighter across her chest and thought about leaving, asking Zack Eddy to reschedule. On the bright side, he would have to work quickly, and she wasn’t being paid by the hour. But her health deserved a hasty retreat. She’d give him five minutes.

Which was precisely when he arrived. The sound of a car door slamming turned her head. Behind her, in the lot at the end of a meandering downhill path, Zack had parked his economical Honda next to her flashy BMW Roadster, the only other vehicle at the park. His dyed black hair, gelled flat to his head like a slick beanie, didn’t budge under the huffing sky.

He bowed into the trunk of his car, retrieved a bag on a long strap, and slung it over his shoulder, then locked up and hoofed it to the trail. He wore skinny jeans tucked into socks, skateboard shoes, and layers of T-shirts. No jacket, like a local. Truly, it was more blustery than chilly, though a reversal probably wouldn’t have mattered to him. Zack’s trademark trench coat was missing, and she thought, smiling, that she ’d only seen him wear it indoors.

She shouted at him and waved. Her toes lifted her heels off the ground in a sort-of jump. Real, take-to-the-air jumping was something she avoided for energy-conservation reasons.

Zack responded with a slight hike of his chin.

She modeled in Zack’s life-drawing class at the university for spending money to call her own, even though her wealthy parents gave her everything she asked for and even more that she didn’t. But independence wasn’t something they could buy on her behalf. Her tiny paycheck gave her the mental strength she needed to keep up with her career plans, short-lived though they might be.

Zack was the last student there she had come to know, but not because she hadn’t made the same attempts to befriend him that she’d made with nearly everyone else.

She pegged him early on as intelligent but morose, willfully depressed because the concept of tortured genius was perennially trendy. The trench coat he usually wore had a suspicious, illicit smell. She imagined he wrote dark poetry in the bleakest hours of the night, after finishing shadowy and sinister charcoal drawings.

His first words to her, which he spoke after three months of silence, were a question: Will you pose for a painting I’ve got to finish? Finding his question sweet and boyish rather than spooky, she’d made him promise not to draw her bodily form in the context of anything like a coffin or a Goth castle or a medieval torture chamber. He answered this request with the most beautiful, genuine, happy laugh, giving her hope that his black moodiness was only a front.

Been here long? he said when he crested the hill, not even breathless. The climb had taken her fifteen slow minutes.

Awhile. You don’t happen to keep your long coat in your car, do you?

No, why? He kept moving toward the wood fence. Looked out, looked down. Test-kicked the post for no apparent reason. A light shower of powdery dirt rained off the rail.

Thought I might borrow it.

If I had it, you could. That’s what I call a drop.

The higher the bluff, the better the vertigo.

There was no laugh to reward her joke this time. Zack withdrew an expensive-looking camera from his bag. He attached a lens that was probably capable of photographing Mars, then repeated the looking out, the looking down, this time through the digital display. Not what she had expected.

This lighting is killer, he said.

Where’s your sketchbook?

With the trench coat. He directed the camera at her, took a step backward. I liked what you were doing when I was coming up. Holding that shawl thing tight, chin back over your shoulder.

Look, I’m sorry if I wasn’t clear about this when we scheduled, Zack, but I don’t do cameras.

Zack moved around her like an orbiting moon. What do you mean, you don’t do cameras? No, no. Keep your back to me.

Promise faced him in full. No pictures.

What? The shutter clicked.

Zack, I mean it.

His eyes rose above the massive lens. Why? What did you think I’d be doing up here?

Drawing. Sketching.

In this weather?

You called it, she said.

I’m a painter.

Painters make thumbnails. For reference.

I take pictures for reference.

I guess we both made some assumptions, then. Sorry about that.

Zack exhaled between thin lips and studied the morphing horizon. What’s your thing about pictures?

I can’t control them.

What? He came closer and leaned in as if he was having trouble hearing. She smelled the alcohol in his hair gel.

I can’t control what you’ll do with pictures of me.

You don’t have the same objection to those videos of you singing. I’ve seen them all over the web. An uncontrollable twitch at the corner of his mouth was almost a smile.

That’s not the same. I own the rights to those.

Who cares about rights anymore?

Promise didn’t like to argue. It was her policy to make friends, not enemies. Some people do. Did you see the one I posted last week?

Maybe.

What did you maybe think of it?

He took a picture of her. She crossed her arms but tried to keep a playful expression. If he persisted with this and posted photos of her online, against her will, ugly ones would get the most attention. No point in helping that to happen.

Do you think I have a chance? she asked.

I don’t know anything about music.

She raised her eyebrows.

I think you’ve got a nice voice. But your stuff is a bit perky for my tastes.

Three different agents e-mailed about it.

He lowered the camera. No kidding.

And a record label. But a small one. I really want an agent.

Is all that stuff you claim on your website true?

You mean did I write all the lyrics? Did I make the musical arrangements?

No. I mean, do you have cystic fibrosis? You cough a lot in class. Are you really going to die before you’re, like, twenty-one?

Promise was open about her disease—this broad disclosure was part of her strategy—and most people thought she was seven notes short of an octave to pick a career that was dependent on a healthy set of lungs. But they didn’t have the guts to say so, as if her feelings might be as fragile as her health.

Actually, I’m twenty-two already. The life expectancy of people with CF keeps going up, you know.

I didn’t.

It’s somewhere in the midthirties now.

So do people feel sorry for you? Say you have a nice voice just to make you feel good?

She’d wondered now and then. Some. I guess.

I’ll bet the agents who wrote to you might like your story more than your voice. It’ll sell albums, you know, especially when you die.

Promise blanched.

Zack shrugged, and his shutter clicked away. But I don’t have any reason to lie to you. You sing good enough.

I hope you’re not studying to be a doctor or minister or something, where it’d be your job to make people feel better.

He finally gave her the laugh she was looking for, though it had cost her more than she’d wanted to spend.

No worries about that. Can we get to work now? he asked, still smiling.

What are we going to do about my photo issues?

Hate to break it to you, but you actually have less control over how people paint you in class.

She shook her head. A drawing is only an interpretation of me, and artists take more care to protect their intellectual property than they do a snapshot. It’s not the same. Class paintings of me aren’t going to show up all over the Internet or be sold on stock photo sites or to tabloids or wherever.

His thin eyebrows, dyed to match his hair, disagreed with her. "Are you calling my photography snapshots?"

I’ve never seen your stuff. I wouldn’t know what to call it. But why do you think Dawson doesn’t allow cameras in class?

I’ve never met a model who—

I’m an artist’s model, not the runway type.

Still, it’s strange.

Strange looks good on celebrity, she said.

He sighed, maybe thinking, maybe annoyed. It doesn’t seem like a good plan for someone who isn’t a celebrity yet.

I’ve wasted your time, she said. That’s my fault. I know someone else who—

No. I wanted you. I mean . . . He gestured to the waters. I’ve got minutes to make this work, then the moment’s gone. We’re here. You’re perfect, this is perfect. Can’t we work something out?

Like what?

Zack’s fingers fiddled with his camera’s dials. He was clean-shaven, babyface smooth but grown-man angular in the cheek and narrow jaw, every limb and feature long and slim. He’d be an interesting subject for drawing himself.

Like what if I give you my memory card when we’re done here? You make the prints for me, erase the card. No electronic files anywhere.

You could scan the prints.

His expression was definitely annoyance this time. I respect your . . . issues, I really do. But I’m in a bind here. He started shooting at the oceanscape without her in the frame. I’ve got less than two weeks to get this piece done. If it doesn’t happen today, it’s not going to happen at all. And I mean really, never. When I’m done with this, I’m done with painting. This is it. And like you, I’d like to go out with a really good work under my belt.

Promise wavered. She wasn’t principled for the sake of making life difficult for others, and she thought he was trustworthy. Weird, in a brainyartsy kind of way, but in the absence of contradictory proof, trustworthy.

I won’t scan your pictures, he said. Okay? I don’t know how to prove that to you. I can only give you my word. I promise not to scan your pictures. He smirked. I promise, Promise.

She relented, stepping between his camera and the sky, her back to him as requested. His camera shutter was fast and rhythmic. She wondered how many prints she’d be developing for him.

So what are you going for? she asked, removing the wrap from her shoulders. She had to cough a few times.

Leave that on, he instructed.

This? It was a favorite burnt-orange wool that she’d worn for comfort and warmth.

It’s a good color. Besides, the wind will blow right through you without it.

Most people don’t like orange.

Earthy rust, stormy blue. Lucky me that you’re strange. It’s a study in contrasts.

A fine cliché.

Not for me. I prefer shades of black, see? He pointed to his T-shirt-and-jeans ensemble.

So if I hadn’t worn orange, what would you be going for? She struck a pose that matched the weather’s glum mood.

Not that. He frowned.

The more you tell me the better I can do.

Don’t think about it as ‘doing,’ okay? Just be.

‘Just be.’ What does that mean?

"Whatever it means when

Reviews for The Promises She Keeps

[thewiserway · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The Promises She Keeps by Erin Healy is a beautifully written novel filled with suspense, courage, and intrigue.The Promises She Keeps by Erin Healy is another incredible work! As with all of the novels I have read from this author thus far, this book manages to unravel a compassionate and mysterious story line in tandem with factual information that is applicable to our society. Through Erin's creative mind, she provides the reader with an in-depth look into the life of both a person suffering with cystic fibrosis and the challenges of living and relating to a person with Autism.Erin Healy's sensitive writing and delicate handling of the challenges a person living with Autism deal with on daily basis sheds light into the diagnosis in a candid way. In addition, the main character suffers with a disabling diagnosis of cystic fibrosis and Healy also brings information to the reader about the reality of this illness. How author, Erin Healy manages to combine a believable fiction thriller with authentic characters living with modern day problems never ceases to amaze me. The Promises She Keeps merges hope, love, and perseverance all into one fast lane. It gracefully touches the fragile issue of our own mortality. This piece stirred within my soul a reflection of a purpose for life reaching far beyond myself; it revealed a focus to serve others and bring them the gift of connection through a simple smile and a kind word. I'm confident you will enjoy this read!

[tammyphillips · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

What are The Promises She Keeps? This novel by Erin Healy was good. It peeked my interest. I am now thinking about the symbolism I may have missed in the first reading. All positives, in my mind, as I finish a satisfying read. This story revolves around the question of life and the source that powers that force. Chase, a young man with autism, draws his visions of that force. His representations are pictures of trees and his verbal descriptions are of potent Biblical verbage, delivered matter of factly, as a person with autism would deliver it. Porta, an aged curator of art, looks for life in mystic forces and the quest for immortality. Promise, a budding vocal talent with cystic fibrosis, aims to prolong her life through fame. In the end, the characters find life in love and sacrifice. I recommend The Promises She Keeps. It was a satisfying drama with compelling characterization. I especially liked reading about Chase. I believe the author portrayed his autism very realistically. It was in his nature, due to the autism, to take things very literally, to not let emotion cloud his reasoning, and to approach people with the innocence of a child. We could all benefit from a little more of that innocence and deliberateness about delivering the truth as we know it. I would like to thank booksneeze.com for providing me with this complimentary copy of The Promises She Keeps by Erin Healy. The opinions I have expressed are my own and I was not required to write a positive review.

[bonniesb · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Promise is a young singer hoping that the fame she so desperately seeks will immortalize her, as she has cystic fibrosis and expects to die young. Portia is a witch and art gallery curator who has searched her whole life for the goddess that will give her immortality and has no regard for the people that will be hurt in pursuit of that goal. And Chase is a man with autism who uses his incredible artistic talent to draw visions of people whom he has not even met yet. At first glance his drawings appear to be of various species of trees and have an eerie ability to foretell the future. At first the stories of these three individuals seemed so disconnected, and in truth I had a hard time believing in, or being drawn into, their connections once they were revealed. I found the ending rather abrupt and would have preferred a little more time being spent tying up those loose ends. I read one reviewer who referred to this book as “Christian Science-Fiction” and for lack of a better term this is the genre I would place it in as well. The story line was a little supernatural for me to really get engaged. For the most part I found it to be a fairly enjoyable read, but I see myself forgetting the plot and characters quickly. There were some broader themes in the novel, such as the idea of what immortality really is (is it being remembered, living forever, or heaven) that made me think. However, there was too much emphasis on the supernatural elements, and not enough exploration of these themes for me to really have loved this book. I felt it to be a good read, but not an excellent read.

[reading_crystal · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I thought The Promises She Keeps would be a hard book to review, until I started reviewing it and really thinking abou the book. When I finished the book I wasn't sure how I felt about it. I knew I could not put it down and I was enthralled by the book, but at one point I was also perturbed by the book. So read on and find out what I mean. And please do read on because I need you to understand that I truly love this book even though I did have a strong dislike reaction at one point. Also, please remember that this is just my subjective opinion.What did I like? Ms. Healy can writes an amazing book and did with The Promises She Keeps, her writing just flows and describes things so well without being wordy. I loved Promise, Chase, and Chelsea. Wonderful characters. I was fascinated by the fact that the main character in this novel, Promise has Cystic Fibrosis. My nephew has Cystic Fibrosis and 6 years ago we had no idea what that disease entailed, and only knew that it existed from the yearly telethon on tv. Now we do know about it and from what I read in this book Ms. Healy did her research well or she knows someone with CF. Promise is an amazing character and I welcome this book to educate so many others about this disease and help understand that each year that CF research is funded that people are helping extend CF patient's life. 20 years ago the life expectancy was in the teens, now it is in the 30s. Wow - that is pretty amazing.Another main character, Chase, is autistic and I loved the look into his life and his mannerisms and the life of his twin sister, Chelsea who is his primary caretaker. These two were fascinating characters and I enjoyed reading about them just as much as Promise. Chase is just amazing, his drawings sound beautiful and his dedication to God is just beautiful. Chelsea's dedication to Chase is also awe-inspiring. She sacrifices everything to do what she can for him and that is a beautiful quality in a person.The plot kept me entranced, I kept turning the pages to see what happened next and I read the last 200 pages in one sitting - that is how involved I was in the book. Ms. Healy does a marvelous job building up the tension without making it too intense. You can kind of see where the book is going, but that doesn't hurt how you read the book because you still don't know how it will get there and the ending is still a surprise.My moment of dislike (and this is a personal opinion) came about 1/3 of the way through the book. I did not like the character of Porta, which you are not supposed to like her, she is the "bad guy". The problem was at times I felt such disgust towards this woman that I thought I would put the book down. The other characters were what pulled me through. But I think Ms. Healy accomplished something here - a truly bad, "bad guy". I can't recall in any recent books where I had that strong of a dislike towards a character and I read suspense and serial killer books. Porta just did not sit right with me as a human being. One thing I did like was that Ms. Healy could have made her a stereotype of witches, but she did not, she used another friend of Porta's who was a wiccan also as a foil to show that this group is not made up of bad people, and that Porta is the one bad seed that can make others look bad. This friend also wanted to help Porta and I liked the friend, but still could find nothing redeeming in Porta. Porta is the only thing I really did not like in the book.The supernatural elements of the plot were interesting. And the linking together of Chase, Chelsea, Promise, Porta and Zack was very well-done. The good and evil were very obvious and the parallels to the story of Jesus and his sacrifice were very evident. Ms. Healy does a great job mixing the Christian element into the book without appearing preachy. It's just natural and it's just there.All-in-all, The Promises She Keeps is a book that will stay with you after you read it. It is one you need to absorb when you finish and the beauty of the story starts to come to life the more you think about it. This one really makes you think and I love the polarization of good and evil. So many times the evil comes out kind of ho-hum, that is not the case in this book. If you haven't read Ms. Healy before, I highly recommend this one, it has suspense, love, good and evil and a storyline that won't let you put the book down.

[theycallmevarmit · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Promises She Keeps was the first book I have read by Erin Healy, a respected and award-winning editor and co-author, and I found it to be a very unique storyline involving subjects such as death, witchery, and the meaning of love and life eternal.Every character seems to have their own personal demons to battle or obstacle to overcome, and it gives them a depth that I wasn't expecting. It makes them endearing, in a way. This in no way takes from the storyline, however. If anything, it enriches it.The one character I liked the most was Porta, because of how well written she was. I couldn't relate to her on a personal level, but she was very cold blooded and hateful, and a character unlike one you'd often see in a Christian fiction. This book had just the right dosage of suspense; I wasn't on the edge of my seat, but I did fly through the pages during certain passages, anxious to see what happened next.The author has done her homework on those who suffer with CF, as well as those with Autism and with Chase particularly, I noticed similarities with habits between him and Autistic people I know personally. This book, though a fiction, gave insight to what both he and Promise go through.This book was easy to read after the first few pages, and was enjoyable throughout. It was a bit darker than I expected thanks to Porta's character, but enjoyable nonetheless. I would have no qualms about recommending this book.

[melaniehope · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Promise is a college student with singing aspirations. However, she has a cystic fibrosis and is not expected to live past her mid-thirties. She therefore wants to leave a legacy of fame behind to keep her memory alive. Porta is an aging sorceress and art collector who is searching for immortality. When Promise survives a series of bizarre accidents that should have ended her life, Porta believes that she has found the girl who holds the key to eternal life.We are also introduced to Chase, an autistic artist who falls in love with Promise and attempts to help her. Soon Chase, Porta, Promise and several other interesting characters are thrown into a confrontation of finding hope and faith.I really liked this book. It was a faith based thriller that really seemed to become suspenseful towards the end of the story. The beginning of the book focuses a lot of time and attention to introducing us to Promise and to the other characters. I did not like the character of Porta. She was the definite "villian" in the novel, but it sometimes was annoying to read the passages by her. I also disliked Zack even though Promise seemed to always see the hope within him. The author seemed to be trying to share that eternal love, not life, may be the greatest gift of all. Twists and turns at the end of the book made for a really good read and I'm glad I had a chance to read this.

[elizajane_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Reason for Reading: I am a fan of the author.Fantastic! This is Erin Healy's best book to date. I was hooked from the first chapter and couldn't let go until I reached the end. This book revolves around three sets of characters and is more character driven than plot driven. Though the plot is a very strange and eerie tale that turns into something so much more. Ultimately the story is about love (from a Christian pov "God is love") and everlasting life. However, the book can be read by anyone as the Christian elements are under the surface and can simply be read as magical realism by non-Christian readers. For Christian readers though, it is a beautiful story of what love and death truly mean.The story follows three individual sets of characters until they all wind up involved with each other in direct or indirect ways. The book starts off with Chase and his sister Chelsea, young 30's twins who live together. Chase is an autistic man and Chelsea has devoted her life to taking care of him. Chase is a wonderful artist who draws trees using any type of white media on black paper. He has also memorized 4 versions of the Bible and likes to quote from it, especially the passages about trees. He has suddenly changed his routine, highly unusual for an autistic, and is drawing trees especially for strangers which he then goes out to the newly opened art gallery to give them to the people he drew them for.The gallery's owner, Porta, is an elderly self-centred woman whose seventy-third birthday is fast approaching and is also a practicing witch. She has just moved to town after having a falling out with the ladies in her former coven. She is now striking out on her own. All her life she has been seeking the person whose blood can bring immortality to anyone they choose. Her son thinks she is crazy and is totally against all she stands for, though he does know the power she has. Of course, growing up with a mother who has never showed him any love has turned Zack into a weak man, addicted to drugs and alcohol. Zack is a bit of an artist himself and meets Promise through the art class he attends.Promise is a young woman with cystic fibrosis who is determined to become a singer to get her bit of fame before she dies but she becomes noticed in a much more infamous way. Once Promise meets Zack she survives a series of what should have been fatal accidents virtually unharmed. This brings her to the attention of Porta who thinks she has finally found the source for immortality. Chase also seeks out Promise as he has drawn her a picture and falls in love with her.All these people come together in a thrilling story of evil vs good. The story is a little eerie at times and the plot is certainly intriguing. The unexpected ending was not what I had hoped for but was satisfying for this reader and beautiful within the Christian context of the story. I'm impressed with Ms. Healy's progress. Her debut solo book Never Let You Go was good, but The Promises She Keeps is great!

[mrsjason · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book seemed to be written differently from other Christian fiction books that I have read. It's a unique read that might not gel with all Christian fiction readers but those that do enjoy it will so very much. The story seems to focus on five characters: Promise - a young girl with cystic fibrosis, Porta - an older woman who wants to live forever, Zack - a young artist with connections between the two women, Chase - an autistic man, and Chelsea - his twin sister who has devoted her life to taking care of him. These five characters soon find their lives intertwined in ways that they didn't see coming. Promise has lived her entire life expecting to die young due to her condition. Suddenly events keep happening that seemingly prolong her life and even seem as if she is being healed. This news gets around to Porta who wants to find out more about Promise and the secrets that she holds.There is an autistic character in the story who plays a big role in the plot. His character is very blunt at times with the statements he makes. It got a bit frustrating at times because while people got angry with him to the point of violence, no one ever really sat down to talk with him about the things he was saying. His words end up being prophetic which can be a bit scary at times when what he says becomes reality. I felt a bit sorry for his sister because as his twin, she feels obligated to give up her life to take care of him.I walked away from the book having some mixed feelings. On one hand, I felt the story to be written well. Healy's writing has literary fiction touches in it mixed in with the suspense and speculative elements blending together nicely. On the other hand, I was a bit disappointed with how everything turned out in the story for the characters. I didn't feel as if all the characters truly understood what was going on with all the events in their lives. I felt that parties were missing important info from the other side and never fully got a grasp of the whole picture. I got really annoyed at the treatment Promise had to endure for something that wasn't her fault at all. It's a tricky situation because I liked the story yet I felt there was just something missing. I've read Healy's previous works with Ted Dekker and liked them. I still think I will continue to read her other works because I did like her style of writing.

[thebloggingbook · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Promise has horrible luck. All in 25 days she fell off a cliff, got ran over by a car, got electrocuted, and trapped in a basement that was on fire. On top of that she has Cystic Fibrosis. She doesn't expect to live long, but she doesn't have a death wish either. This was an odd book, I still don't understand the meaning behind it. I know it was supposed to have an inspiring message in it but I didn't catch it. It left me with more questions than I began with. I get angry with books when the characters don't do something I think they should do, like ask questions or listen to what people are saying. There were too many secrets, the reader kind of knew what was going on, but the characters were to stubborn to listen. Over all it was a pretty good book.